


Tetradance

by sinnerrific



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Original Work
Genre: Child Abuse, Child Soldiers, F/F, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Modern Fairy Tales, Slurs, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 01:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1839757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinnerrific/pseuds/sinnerrific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ringer, like most of the people living at the underground Diaboleite base, did not join the Emperor's Army of her own free will. </p><p>Unlike most, she is not a stealth-trained soldier familiar with magic, or even an adult. She is an entertainer, spending most of her life passed from one bed to another like a pretty doll. She has not seen the outside world since she was young.</p><p>The arrival of a strange, troublingly unchildlike boy called "Mark" and his three companions heralds the first of many changes to Ringer's life. Who are these children, and why did they end up here? What makes them so unerringly convinced they can get away?</p><p>And to what lengths are they willing to go to protect one another?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The night they first brought Mark and the other children to the base, Ringer was alone and locked in Simon's office.

"Office" might have been too formal a word. Nobody was really _supposed_ to have private rooms, though the higher ups did, when "workspaces" became "restricted areas" became "personal quarters," and so on. All the really important people had their own places to sleep, where they wouldn't have to worry about being stabbed in the dead of the night by grudge-wielding yeomen and their ilk. Ringer mostly slept in the kept rooms as a guest (more euphemisms); usually Simon's when he was at the base, or sometimes in the others' when he wasn't. She knew there were designated sleeping areas on the lower levels full of cots and bunk beds, multiple sets packed in tightly against the walls and bolted to the floors. Those were for the cavalry to sleep in. Ringer, not being a yeoman soldier nor a knave, had no reason to visit them herself. She already had more than enough of men and women dragging her into bed with them, from the higher ranks alone. Sleeping among the foot soldiers would be taken as an invitation, from someone like her.

Simon's room was usually safe enough, given that he didn't like to leave her a key to get out while he was gone. Ringer was lying on his empty futon, clad only in her bra and underwear, when a sudden pounding at the door startled her out of her nap. There was a loud banging and men's voices shouting from the hall:

_"Hey! Princess, you with the chink hair—open up! We know you're in there!"_

_"Hurry up, please! We've got a job for you."_

Ringer sat up at once, tiredness dissipating into an anxious rush of nervousness. She didn't bother to pull a robe on to cover herself before she jumped off the futon, padding hurriedly over to the door in her bare feet.

"Hello?" she called out to the other side, keeping her tone small and nervous in the way she'd learned angry men sometimes took as a sign of respect. "I'm here, I just can't open the door. What's the matter...?"

There was a muffled swear from the other side, words indistinguishable but said in a familiar voice. Ringer was trying to work out who it was when the knob suddenly turned, keys rattling loudly as they unclicked the lock.

" _There_ we go," a man's voice said triumphantly, and the door swung open in front of Ringer's eyes before another small person was unceremoniously shoved inside to the floor. "Told you I had the hallway master key from Si, didn't I?"

Ringer blinked and stepped backward, startled by this turn of events. The man who had spoken was a a yeoman soldier she recognized, a man called Kenrick. He stood outside the door with another man she didn't recognize, a vassal understudy judging by his clothes.

The third figure they had brought with them was the one who really caught Ringer by surprise—a human child, no older than nine or ten years old. He had to be younger than Ringer herself had been, when she first arrived at the base. The boy was scruffy in appearance, littered with fresh bruises on his arms and legs. Upon being shoved down by Kenrick onto the carpet in Simon's room, the boy glared ferociously back at the two men through a pair of stormy brown eyes.

Kenrick sneered down at him. "What are you looking at, runt?"

The boy continued glaring, but said nothing. Satisfied, Kenrick turned to Ringer instead.

"We need you to keep an eye on him, _princess_ ," he told her in an authoritative tone, gesturing toward the boy. "Turns out the mark that Wake was after on that storefront infiltration was actually just a group a' kids, sticking their runny little noses where they didn't belong. Instead of killing 'em, she decided to round up the brats and bring 'em all back here...chit's worse than a fay-bitch, I swear."

The man standing next to him interrupted sharply. "That _chit_ made a good call, Kenrick," he snapped, giving his companion a hard look. "Kids are like roaches. You find one or two of them hanging out when the lights are on, it probably means there's a whole lot more hiding where you can't see 'em. Who knows who or what they're working for? And even if it _is_ just these four working alone, Wake still needs to figure out how the hell they got in, and what they did with our information. Nothing that we know so far is adding up..."

The boy on the carpet growled at this. "I told you, we just wanted food!" he snarled, eyes flashing with loathing.

Kenrick stepped forward and kicked him, knocking the boy back to the floor with a wheeze. "Shut up!"

Ringer bit her lip, considering the information she had. Her heart was racing, not wanting to upset Kenrick in the boy's stead. "You want me to watch him? Mister?" she asked in the same, purposefully small voice, not letting any nervousness show. She resisted the urge to fold her arms over her almost-bare chest.

The man that might have been a vassal understudy turned to her and nodded. "Just for a little while," he explained shortly, catching Kenrick by the arm before he could step in and kick the boy again. "Just until Simon and Mace get back. The rest of the kids are with the den mother, but they won't talk if this one's in the room. The way Wake explained it, he's the oldest, the others listen to him. We need a place to keep 'im hid until we're ready to have our meeting."

Ringer's eyes flickered to the boy, who was still silent and seething with his injuries. If this one was the oldest of the children they had brought, she couldn't begin to guess at how young the others must be.

She nodded meekly back to the vassal understudy, deciding she couldn't do much else besides agree. The man smiled in return, his expression strained but polite.

"Thanks, princess," he said, holding the door as Kenrick followed him out. "My name's Harold. We'll be back in an hour."

He closed the door behind them, a jangle of keys preceding the telltale _click_ that signaled it was locked.


	2. Chapter 2

Ringer listened to the sounds of the men's footsteps receding down the hall, lost in thought. She was wondering what Simon would say once he got back when the boy on the carpet suddenly stood up, beginning to look around the room.

"Where am I?" he demanded. His eyes surveyed all Simon's furniture, and scattered work effects, not seeming to miss anything. _"Where are my kids?"_

Ringer's skin prickled. The boy was smaller than the men and women at the base, and smaller than Ringer herself: for that reason, she had expected him to _act_ smaller, more timid. But his voice wasn't fearful or uncertain at all, instead sounding direct, and forceful. Like an adult's. Belatedly, Ringer realized it been a long, long time since she'd even _seen_ a child, and in fact had all but forgotten their existence after so many years of being the youngest person at the Emperor's Army base. She had no idea, whether or not most children were supposed to act as weak as they looked. She also had no idea if they were supposed to refer to one another as _'my kids,'_ though the phrasing struck her immediately as sounding odd.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Ringer said quickly, automatically shifting her posture and voice to accommodate the boy's behavior. She addressed him as if he were an adult to be safe, not knowing if (or how) he might react to being disrespected. "We're at the Emperor's Army station, mister—Diaboleite. And I don't know any more than you do about the kids, except for what Mister Kenrick and Harold mentioned. Sorry."

As she spoke, she glanced over the boy and took in his physical features, which she'd been too distracted to do earlier. The boy had dark, brown hair, curled in tight ringlets all the down to his chin. He had medium-brown skin that spoke of mixed ancestry, black and maybe also Caucasian. His large, dark eyes were angry and observant, staring out in a calculating way.

His clothes were worn and untidy. The boy wore a hooded green sweatshirt on top that was rolled up to his knobby elbows, with a pair of plain black soccer shorts underneath. The skinny limbs that protruded from his clothes were mottled with bruises, which Ringer had already seen. The boy must have been fighting someone before he got here. Or at least, Kenrick had been fighting him. Ringer wondered what the boy might have done, to upset the yeoman to the point of violence. It didn't take much to anger Kenrick, but it wasn't impossible to avoid that if you knew how to act.

The boy, who hadn't seemed to really notice Ringer while busy taking in his surroundings, looked at her now with unmistakable surprise.

"Emperor's Army?" he asked. " _That's_ what this is? So they really do have—"

He cut off, suddenly going wide-eyed and turning away from her.

" _Sorry_ ," he said, very quickly, with his gaze affixed firmly on the opposite wall. "Sorry, sorry. I didn't know you were..."

"Hm? What's wrong, mister?" Ringer asked, bewildered.

The boy made a sound. "You're...they didn't give you time to get dressed, before coming in. I didn't realize."

Ringer startled, belatedly remembering the robe she'd left hanging on the coat rack by the futon. "Oh! _I'm_ sorry, I'm sorry," she said hurriedly, hurrying over and pulling on the garment to cover herself. She didn't usually wear her robe here in Simon's room, both as a matter of comfort and personal preference—Simon's preference, specifically—and in fact usually forgot about dressing properly until someone else was there to pay attention. "Sorry, mister, it's fixed now. Thanks for reminding me."

"Uh, no problem." The boy turned back to her, awkward demeanor fading when he took in the sight of Ringer in her bathrobe. "...Why do keep calling me 'mister?'"

"What?" Ringer asked, smiling apologetically out of habit. "Oh, sorry about that, I just didn't know your name. I'm Ringer. If you want me to, I can call you something else...?"

She waited, but the boy only stared at her wordlessly. Unnerved, Ringer averted her gaze after a moment, and kept her hands clasped tightly in front of her. The boy didn't _seem_ to be staring for the reasons that most people did, but his unspoken scrutiny made her uncomfortable all the same.

Finally, the boy spoke up again. "Your name is Ringer?"

"Yes."

"Is that your real name?"

Ringer stared back at him a moment, nonplussed. "I...no, it isn't," she confessed, cocking her head to the side in a way she knew that some people were partially disarmed by. "Why, mister? Is there something else you'd rather call me?"

Ringer smiled at him then, sweetly but not flirtatiously. She still had very little idea, of what the boy might be looking for from her; the cues he'd given so far weren't helping much to paint a picture of the sort of attitude he'd respond to favorably.

With Ringer smiling at him, the boy's expression only grew more incredulous. She let the saccharine expression drop and decided she'd try something more pragmatic next.

"Can I get you anything to drink?" Ringer offered, putting on a different smile, far less sugary and more courteous like her tone. "Or, are you hungry? I have bandages here, too, if you think you need any. Your legs look like they might be hurting..."

The boy glanced down quickly at his bruised limbs, looking startled—then he seemed to catch himself, jerking his gaze back up to look at her almost instantly.

"No, no, I'm fine," he assured Ringer. "Sorry, but—can I ask you how old you are?"

Again with the questions _._ Questions about _her_. Ringer found herself growing more and more nervous around the boy with each passing minute. Kenrick said they had brought the boy down from the surface, hadn't they? Why wasn't he asking questions about the base itself, or what the Army wanted with him and his friends? The boy had to have known by now that he was in trouble, unless kids were simply far more stupid about certain things than they were about others. Ringer didn't like that she wasn't sure.

She also had no idea how old he _wanted_ her to be. "I..." Ringer had nothing to build on, nothing that had elicited a positive response so far. Any answer she could give was a shot in the dark, so she opted instead for the truth. "I really don't know."

The boy's frown deepened, making her wish immediately she had said something else. "What do you mean, you don't know?" he demanded.

Ringer shrank back at his tone. "I'm sorry. I don't remember," she said too quickly, wishing she had made up something innocuous to deflect suspicion. "I think eighteen?"

The boy shook his head, not angry but with a stern expression. "There's no way you're eighteen." He seemed oddly certain of this, taking in Ringer's appearance again with a carefully scrutinizing eye. "Fifteen, maybe. Probably even younger. Do you know exactly how long you've been here, Ringer?"

Ringer didn't like these questions. Her stomach was beginning to hurt. "Well..." She didn't know the answer to this question either, truthfully, but she wasn't about to make the same mistake with him twice. "Ten years, I think. A little less than that." She suspected that might at least be somewhat close to the reality.

The boy was silent for a long moment before he spoke again, though his expression seemed less suspicious than before. Or maybe it was simply less calculating.

"Is ten years back when you started living here, in _this_ base?" he asked. "Or is that when you first joined the Emperor's Army?"

Ringer knew that simple answers were usually the best. "This base," she said.

"How did you get here?"

Anyone who asked this many questions couldn't be good news. "I don't..." _I don't think I'm supposed to tell you,_ was the truthful answer, but the truth was not always the best thing to say. Nor was it always the only true answer to give. "It doesn't matter."

She expected him to press the issue, but instead boy let out a long, unhappy-sounding sigh. Ringer watched him warily, but he didn't seem focused on her anymore, merely pacing back and forth across a small square of the carpet and apparently thinking to himself. It would probably be rude to interrupt him, so Ringer stayed silent while he walked.

Finally, he glanced up again. She was prepared for more hostility, but instead, the boy smiled at her, expression strangely open and innocent after all the suspicious attitude he'd had before.

"What's this room, Ringer?" he asked, in a tone that was surprisingly light. "Is it yours?"

Finally, a topic she could speak comfortably about. At least, more or less than she could about herself. "No, this is Simon's office." Ringer smiled again, in a blandly polite sort of way she used for guests. "Simon's a vassal of the Diaboleite station. He's very important. He lets me sleep in here with him, so I stay here whenever he's away." Ringer was thankful for that, though the advantage of sharing a private quarters with a vassal could also be a discomfort on other occasions. She quickly turned her thoughts away, however, adding, "Simon's going to help the others decide what to do, when he gets back, and the vassals meet with the yeomen about your friends. Everyone has to make a decision to give to the base lord or it isn't official."

She swore she could see the boy's eyes narrow at that, almost imperceptibly—but then, another wide-eyed, guileless stare met her own from across the room, and Ringer was left uncertainly to wonder if she'd only imagined the suspicion. The boy looked away from her to the steel door.

"Is the room locked from the inside?" the boy asked curiously, though he looked very obviously troubled by that thought.

She didn't like to disappoint him. But, lying was no good, if the truth would be reality for them both. "Yes, it is," Ringer said, her tone shifting to apologetic to accommodate his insecurity. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait for Simon to get back before you go anywhere. You can't get out right now."

And, just like that, the boy's flat, calculating stare returned. He turned again to look at Ringer, dark eyes boring intensely into hers.

"Neither can you, then. Right?"

Ringer swallowed, realizing with a flash of upset that she'd been tricked. _Children trick people._ Ringer committed this fact to memory, nervous but determined not to show it. She was older and smarter than she had been a long time ago, ago wouldn't be lured into making the same mistake twice.

But, it was getting harder and harder to remind herself, that this _boy_ was the prisoner here instead of her.


End file.
